Gallipoli War Diary-Rikihana Carkeek

Learning areas 

Social sciences (level 4): Understand how people participate individually and collectively in response to community challenges. 

English (level 4): Listening, reading, and viewing Language features: • Show a developing understanding of how language features are used for effect within and across texts. (Indicator: knows that authors have different voices and styles and can identify some of these differences.)

Rikihana Carkeek was a prominent Ngāti Raukawa leader who was in the Māori Contingent and the New Zealand Pioneer Battalion. He fought in many battles during the First World War and kept a diary throughout. Rikihana returned home an officer and died, much later, at age 72. His memoirs were published after his death.

 Key questions

• What can we observe?

• What do we already know? 

• How might people view these diary entries in different ways? 

Possible discussion questions 

• What impressions do you have of Rikihana after reading his diary excerpts? 

• How do the events Rikihana describes in these excerpts fit in with other First World War events you know about? 

• How do you think Rikihana Carkeek felt during the different events he describes? 

• Have you read any other diaries? 

• Why might it have been challenging to write/keep a diary during the war? 

• What differences might there be between the way a soldier or a nurse described their experiences in their diaries compared with their descriptions in a letter home? 

• Why do people keep diaries? 

• If someone 100 years from now were to read a diary you had written, what might be of interest to them?

A short 4 minute video about Rikihana Carkeek

Chunuk Bair Poem